Lions 2013: Jamie Roberts ready to live up to 'saviour' tag

Jamie Roberts is not a man to shirk the magnitude of the moment. Last Saturday
he stepped on stage at the Festival Hall, Melbourne to play rhythm guitar to
You Love Us alongside his boyhood idols, the Manic Street Preachers.

Crest of a wave: The British and Irish Lions hope Jamie Roberts can ride to the rescue against AustraliaPhoto: EPA

This Saturday he will lead the charge at Sydney’s Olympic Stadium as the Lions look to win a series for the first time in 16 years.

Restored to the front line after three weeks out with a hamstring injury, Roberts has been cast as the saviour of the tour, the entire cavalry riding to the rescue all wrapped up in the No 12 shirt. He is a one-man posse out to snare the bad guys in gold.

He made no attempt on Wednesday to downplay the significance of the match, nor his place within the grand scheme of things. As a gifted inside centre, passing is his game. All bar the buck, that it.

“I see my role as a responsibility, not as a pressure,” said Roberts, well-versed in knife-edge situations having recently qualified as a doctor. “I have been picked to do a job and it is important I deliver.

"The higher the pressure, the more responsibility is put on me, the more I thrive. It is a Lions deciding Test, and this is the time you have to deliver.”

As he did in front of a packed auditorium last weekend, taking up an offer made by the Welsh-based band many months ago. “I am the sort of guy who takes every opportunity that comes their way,” said Roberts.

“That was thrown in front of me and I couldn’t say no. I adored the Manics growing up. It was a good experience.”

That Saturday be the same is the fervent wish of the many thousands of Lions fans in Australia still clinging to the hope that the team can pull it off even though they have never won a clinching game in a Lions series following this pattern of results.

Roberts is the king-man in realising those dreams. He has been missed since limping out of the game against the Waratahs in Sydney. There was a plangent TV shot of him disappearing down the tunnel, his broad back hunched.

“I thought I was going home at that moment, thought that my tour was over,” said Roberts the medic, all too grateful that a second opinion is the staple of his second profession. “The gods smiled on me and the medics have done a brilliant job.”

They have that, with three of the back line, Roberts, George North and Tommy Bowe all in harness again ahead of schedule. Short of waving a magic wand and seeing Paul O’Connell return to the field, the restoration of Roberts is the one figure that the Lions would want to see back in action.

He is more than a mere big man battering forward, targeting that inside-shoulder channel between James O’Connor and Christian Leali’ifano, important as that full-frontal approach is.

Roberts also has bearing, the body language of a player who fears no one and has the fortitude to deal with anything that comes his way.

Roberts, with Mike Phillips and others sweeping in behind his thrusts, dismisses the notion that this is essentially a Wales team masquerading as the Lions. “We are not playing like Wales at all,” said Roberts.

“We are playing quite a bit differently in fact. These players have been picked to do a job.”

Even so there will be instant familiarity around him with only Bowe and fly-half Jonny Sexton non-Welsh. Sexton will be alongside Roberts, a prelude to what may turn out to be a profitable alliance at Racing Metro in Paris where they will gather as new team-mates in a few weeks’ time.

That understanding needs to be there on Saturday if the Lions are to prevail.

“Brian will be remembered as a Lions legend,” said Roberts. “He is a force, a leader, but it is up to me and Jon now to lead in midfield. Jon has been one of the standout players of this tour. His all-round game is pretty special. He is a great athlete, he can kick a ball, is a good distributor and has an eye for space.”